that water never did to land before
by Fallon Ash
Summary: Post-ep. 'A little help from my friends'. Kerry and Sandy at home, attempting to deal with life.


Title: that water never did to land before  
  
Author: Fallon Ash  
  
Spoilers: up to and including 'A little help from my friends'  
  
Rating: PG-13, I suppose, mainly for angst  
  
Disclaimer: Characters most definitely not mine...  
  
Summary: Some time, more than 24 hours, less than a week, after 'A little help from my friends'. Kerry and Sandy at home, attempting to deal with life.  
  
Author's Note: It's pretty much self-explanatory. A bundle of angst from reading the spoilers for 9x11 that I desperately needed to get out. Inspired by the Robert Frost poem, it can be found at the end. Enjoy!  
  
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"...great waves looked over others coming in, and thought of doing something to the shore that water never did to land before..." Robert Frost  
  
Her soft curls are dancing on her back, and their laughter echoes softly along our short stretch of shore, to reach me where I'm seated under a huge pine tree. The waves lap softly at the stones, and the sun warms from overhead, causing temperatures more due summer than this early spring. When he tires, he abandons her and determinedly makes his way towards me, plopping down on my lap, resting his head on my shoulder. Wrapping my arms around his small body, and placing a soft kiss atop his dark head, I watch her as she, also, leaves the shore to join us. Her hair is blown into an unruly mess of tangled curls, and her cheeks are rosy from the sun and the wind and the activity. She is more beautiful now than ever before. She drops to the ground beside me, resting her head on my other shoulder, and together we bask in the sun and our love, and peace settles over us. Until I see it. It's huge, and dark, and moving across the water, rapidly approaching us. A chill races trough my soul, taking an icy grip around my pounding heart. I pull my family closer to me, but they seem oblivious to the impending danger. And then the wind is upon us, howling and obscuring the sun, pulling at them. I try to hold on, I yell at them to fight, but they are still oblivious. And then they are ripped from my arms, as the ground disappears below me, and I am tossed through the dark and cold universe... alone...  
  
...the all-too-rough pillow under my cheek grounds me, as I'm abruptly pulled from my nightmare of sleep into my nightmare of reality. I'm tangled in my sheets, heart pounding, body covered in sweat. I can feel the bile at the back of my throat, and my eyes are obscured by the tears that have also dampened my pillow. Blindly, I reach towards the other side of the bed, where she is supposed to be, needing her warm body to comfort me, and push the dark shivers threatening to overtake me away. My hand meets only a cold sheet. Both body and comforter are gone. My tears come more intensely, and I turn onto my back as the sobs I hold back make my lungs ache. I wrap my arms around my midsection, and let go...  
  
When I stop crying and open my eyes to actually see the world around me, it is much too peaceful for my weary state of mind. The sun outside is angled down through the blinds, giving the room a warm glow. The house is resting, silently, and I can hear children playing down the street. There is a stillness to the universe I don't want to acknowledge. The crying has worn me out, but the pain is still there, someone raking sharp fingernails on the inside of my skin, invisible to anyone else, but always present, never letting up. It is not fair. But I push my legs over the edge of the bed, and reach for an old pyjama shirt to pull over my head. Rising, I pull the comforter with me, to keep some of its warmth, and on legs more prone to giving up than usually, using table and bookshelves and the wall to steady me, I leave the room to search for her.  
  
I find her in the living room, shivering slightly in front of the open window, where she stands watching the large tree in the backyard move softly. The wind is slight, and you can almost imagine the tree moving by itself. She says it calms her. I finally asked her about it, after yet another night where I'd woken to a solitary bed, after a particularly bad fire, and gone to find her at the open window, staring at my tree. At first I thought she wouldn't answer, but she did, finally, a soft whisper in Spanish, like a long-forgotten nursery rhyme. She spoke of her grandmother, and Puerto Rico, and a tree that could reach heaven, and other things as well that I did not understand. But when she eventually realized what she was saying, she just quieted, and led me back to the bedroom. She says it calm her. But she doesn't look calm now, with her comforter clutched tightly against her body, and the fresh remainder of tears evident on her cheeks, eyes red and puffy. Maybe she is calm on the inside.  
  
She still hasn't noticed me. I walk up to her, inserting my body between her and the window, relaxing a little as she wraps her right arm around me, steadying me; a habit of hers whenever she's near and my crutch is not. I don't know if she's aware of doing it, but I don't resist it, having decided once and for all that it was rather a sign of her caring than it was because she thought I was in physical need of it. I don't mind it. It feels pretty damn good to be held close like that on occasion.  
  
But now, while I'm tucked closely against her side, her mind is still miles away, her eyes focused deep within that green foliage, as it is twisting and sparkling with the afternoon sun. I can see her coming back, though, as she gradually moves me to stand in front of her, putting her chin on my left shoulder, and gently detangling me from my comforter to wrap us both in hers. As her arms finally wind their way under my shirt around my stomach while I hold the comforter closed I can sense her tears starting again, the sobs in her chest echo in my back. I can feel my own tears burn my eyes, but I fight them for a little while, to watch her beautiful tree, but before long I turn in her arms, and let my tears fall with hers. The sorrow is softer now, because together we can keep the raw panic and the endless darkness at bay. Wrapped in each other, we mourn what we never really had in the first place. We mourn something that might have been, a future that we might have gotten, but something that was still a part of us. We both gave a piece of our souls to that small creature that I couldn't even feel as a lump inside me, and those parts will never be returned to us. Scar tissue will cover the rip, but right now it's an open wound, bleeding freely.  
  
And yet, life always moves on around you without thought to care or consideration.  
  
"What do you wanna eat, love?"  
  
"Eat?" I look at her incredulously. "I don't think I can eat."  
  
"You need to eat, and you know it." She tucks my hair behind my ears. "When was the last time you ate?"  
  
My mind pulls a blank. I was working all night, and I know I didn't eat when I came home. I probably didn't eat anything at the hospital either, the memories of that place enough to make nauseous. I don't remember, my shift is a blur of patients and held-back emotions. At Abby's quiet "Are you all right, Dr. Weaver?" it was all I could do not to lose it right then and there. No, I haven't eaten.  
  
"With you... yesterday, before your shift."  
  
"Good god..." she's worried. "Come on..."  
  
I'm reluctant. "Sandy, please... I..."  
  
"Love, you need to eat, I'm gonna have something as well. My shift starts in three hours, and mama asked me to drop by her house first if I had time."  
  
I look at her. I'd forgotten she was working tonight. That means I will be alone all night. "What time do you get off?"  
  
She looks at me regretfully. "Eight am. You start at seven, right?"  
  
I nod, miserably, but I don't speak. I only grip her hand tighter and follow her to the kitchen. Sitting down in a chair I watch as she rustles around, making something that looks like toast. She settles down beside me, finally, and I take a bite, almost spitting it right back out at the fire that fills my mouth. I put a hand to my chest a try to breathe normally, as the explosion subsides and leaves a painful burning sensation behind. But it is a welcome pain, almost a relief, as it is tangible, and physical, and rational, and I know I can make it go away by will. So I take another bite, prepared this time, and seek out her gaze with a raised eyebrow. She shrugs, and I can see a similar reaction in her from the spices.  
  
"I figured," she starts, and takes a small drink of water. "That if you were feeling like I am... then this..." she gestures to her food, "wouldn't be..." and she can't quite find a word for it.  
  
But I understand. "Thanks." And we finish our food in silence.  
  
"Look," she says, and looks slightly uncomfortable. "Are you going to be ok here... tonight?"  
  
I don't quite dare to speak, but I nod, and try to look confident.  
  
She doesn't buy it. "Should I could call some..." and she breaks off, and lowers her eyes. She knows as well as I do that there isn't anyone she can call for me.  
  
I turn her hand over in my own, caressing her fingers, tracing the tiny scar I stitched so long a time ago. I look at her now and realize we've been through a lifetime together. Not a long lifetime, but a lifetime still. And the thought makes the emptiness inside me fill out, trying to invade my body and my mind, struggling to overtake me. She catches me, and once again we are in each other's arms, wiping tears away.  
  
"I need to go, love."  
  
I nod, and pull away, attempting to pull myself together as well. She strokes my hair. "I'll call you when I find the time, but you should try to get some sleep."  
  
"Call me. Time doesn't matter."  
  
She nods. I'm grateful that she knows better than to suggest she doesn't call for the purpose of allowing me to sleep. She knows I won't sleep.  
  
As she wanders around the house, getting her things together, I remain at the kitchen table. I try to empty my head, empty it of the pain, the sorrow, the fear. For the first time in my life, I am afraid to be alone. Growing up in an orphanage, and never having anything to myself, has made me crave my space, my things, my life, as much as possible to myself. Solitude and privacy have been to most important factors in my life, both professionally and personally. Always keep to yourself everything that isn't crucial to divulge. That is how much she has changed me. And oddly enough, while the thought frightens me, I'm almost glad to know it's there, because it's another little sign that what we have is real, and won't suddenly go away one day. She's changing me, and I'm changing her, and it's bringing us closer together. I still have visions of her suddenly disappearing, but I'm trusting her more and more, and I'm trusting myself with her more and more. I'm still going to be alone tonight, though.  
  
She comes back into the kitchen once more, carrying her bag, and my crutch, which she deposits by my side.  
  
"I'm leaving. I'll be at mama's until my shift start, call me, if there's anything... just to hear my voice..." She smiles a little, I try to smile back. "or just so I can hear yours..." There's a pause. "I'll drop by the hospital tomorrow, when I get off. If you're free, I'll make you eat breakfast."  
  
And she bends down to kiss me, and whispers as she pulls back to look into my eyes. "I love you."  
  
"I love you." I whisper back, and kiss her once more. And then she's left the kitchen, and the door closes behind her, and I can even hear her car start, if I listen hard. And I am alone once more.  
  
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"The shattered water made a misty din.  
  
Great waves looked over others coming in,  
  
And thought of doing something to the shore  
  
That water never did to land before  
  
The clouds were low and hairy in the skies,  
  
Like locks blown forward in the gleam of eyes.  
  
You could not tell, and yet it looked as if  
  
The shore was lucky in being backed by cliff,  
  
The cliff in being backed by continent;  
  
It looked as if a night of dark intent  
  
Was coming, and not only a night, an age.  
  
Someone had better be prepared for rage.  
  
There would be more than ocean-water broken  
  
Before God's last Put out the Light was spoken."  
  
Robert Frost  
  
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